Something in the Water's Making Boston Skaters Get Weird

Dillon Buss reimagines modern skateboarding. It's part comedy, part art.

While the City of Boston focuses on a 40,000-square-foot-skatepark opening—the skate equivalent of the Big Dig—there’s plenty of surreality spinning along the Charles River. A close cousin to the mischievous mirth of the Fancy Lad crew, Orchard / Raw alum Dillon Buss brings us Skate Vision, a brilliant skate satire with top-shelf tricks.

One section starts with watery VHS footage and a Tommy Hilfiger-kitted out ledge-smith, with the dramatic voiceover saying, “Boston 1992, the progression from secluded backyard pools, to crowded city streets. On this day in history, street skating changed forever.” Having been a block away from where the faux-retro clip was filmed in the 90s, the statement is actually more false than true. OK, the secluded pools thing is the real joke, but there was a street boom in Boston that had started a few years earlier, bringing skating to mostly untapped areas of the city including Downtown Boston, the financial district, and the waterfront, where many of these clips were filmed in present day.

You’ll see those iconic stone ovals from “Eggs” and plenty of other marbley Boston spots, but skated in a completely different manner than you’re used to seeing, with the focus on avant approaches to the everyday along with general weirdness. Buss’ over-the-top skits, mixed with skate nerd minutia, techy filming and creative skating, should appeal to all.